


DawnStar Rising

by DreamSmithAJK



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Jem and the Holograms (Cartoon)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Boarding School, Comedy, F/F, F/M, Magical Realism, Musicians, Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25922824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamSmithAJK/pseuds/DreamSmithAJK
Summary: Glory is beaten, and all it cost was EVERYTHING.Now Dawn has to start a new life, utterly alone in a foster house full of strangers, secrets, music, and magic.Something strange is happening at Starlight house, but Jerrica Benton has no idea that the new girl brought along a mysterious power all her own.Get ready for a remix of the original Jem story, where nothing is quite as you expect.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	DawnStar Rising

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer:  
> The characters, situations and storylines from Buffy and the Jem television show that are mentioned herein remain the property of their respective owners, just as the characters and situations of my creation remain my property. I may be borrowing some toys in order to tell my own story here, but I promise I'll put them back when I'm done, and in pristine condition.
> 
> Also, these people are the best of the best, for they have dared the wrath of gods and admins both, and I love them for it:  
> Ardie Scott, Aimee Lewis, David Helmink, Janne Syrjakoski (I mangled that but yikes!), mpop, Dale Powell, Liliane Assous, JVR, Christopher, Chris E, Michael Cronin, Jeffrey Clemons, and Jessamyn Howe.  
> \------Thank you, friends.
> 
> This story begins at the very end of Buffy Season Five, and at the very beginning of Jem's Season One (this is the 1985 television show, not the inexplicably bad 2015 Jem movie).
> 
> Author's Note--  
> Hi. Had to work out some issues. Took a few years. Back now. Hopefully.
> 
> Author's Note II--  
> So, about this thing.  
> Betcha didn't expect this fandom, huh?  
> Call it a writing exercise (that got slightly out of hand). Testing the systems, trying a new approach, temporarily going bugnuts crazy. You know, doing writer stuff.  
> This story is also sort of rough in execution (not kidding about the 'writing exercise' thing), it's sort of weird (I'm always sort of weird), and a fair bit darker than a Jem fic really ought to be (I'm emo and depressed too, could you tell?).  
> Seriously, my dudes, this one's weeeeird, and probably a one-off. Maybe. Unless it's not. Don't know.
> 
> Author's Note III: I _have_ watched the show, and argued passionately with every episode of the excellent JemCast podcast (out loud, to my tablet), so yes I _am_ fairly conversant with the characters and the show. If things are different then it's almost certainly because I meant to do that.
> 
> Author's Note IV--I'm just stalling now, but also: Thanks for reading, and if you're giving this a look because you have fond feelings for my other work, thanks, you're both generous and awesome.

Day 0

It wasn't Buffy's fault that it ended as it did.

The screams; stark and shrill as the brave band of friends died, it wasn't anyone's fault, not even Buffy's. Yes, she was strong, and fierce, and better at being a Slayer than any girl in the last century at least... but it wasn't her fault that so much went wrong, and every one of her precious found-family was slaughtered.

It was, after all, a Goddess that they were fighting, albeit a goddess from a distant hell dimension, hobbled and weakened by the sheer, unimaginable distance between her and the wellsprings of her power. 

Because even weakened, even distracted and divided and diminished by her long imprisonment in the mortal body of that Ben person, Glory was still so powerful, so blindingly fast and difficult to hurt....

Before it was over, she'd killed them all.

Willow, Xander, Giles, Anya. Even poor Tara, barely in her right mind after Willow had managed to undo most of what the hellgoddess had done, only lived long enough to see Willow smashed to ground in a lifeless heap before dying herself, brutally slashed and stabbed by the blades of those scabby little demon minions.

The Buffybot trick worked well enough to give Buffy a chance at winning, though the bot herself was thrown high and far by the detonation of the Dagon sphere to lie unmoving for the rest of the battle. 

Then it was Spike's turn; poor, lovelorn, impossibly noble Spike, who had managed to give Buffy a critical opening to deliver her Troll hammer beat-down on the weakened hell-deity, buying that distraction at the cost of being torn in half by a pair of dainty, manicured hands, vanishing in a spray of blood and flurry of ashes in the instant before the Slayer finally, _finally_ managed to drive Glory to her knees, and then face-down into the dirt, broken and beaten at last.

And all of that, the entire awful, horrifying, nightmarish thing had played out as Dawn had watched, wide eyes streaming with tears, from her perch high above.

Dawn. Fourteen years old and the key to armageddon, watching it unfold like a princess in the royal seats, watching the gladiators bleed and die down on the floor of the arena.

Tied and helpless, victim and weapon all in one, the only reason that Glory had come to Sunnydale, the only reason any of this was happening at all.

No, none of it was Buffy's fault.

It was Dawn's.

When Buffy had reached the top of the tower, the hellgate was already opening, activated by the Key's blood, spilled by that odd little grey demon man in the suit. The Slayer tossed him aside almost without noticing, ignoring his death cry as he fell and fell and went _Splud!!_ on the ground.

And it was too much for Dawn to bear, when Buffy refused to hear her desperate pleas for forgiveness, her sobbing apologies for being the cause of it all, for having even _existed_ , because her existence was what had brought all of this to pass. 

Buffy just shushed her, and held her, and kissed her on the forehead, before facing the growing rift, her eyes full of dreadful certainty, and a terrifyingly steady resolve.

Then she ran.

And leapt.

And fell.

And died.

She closed the gate, and saved the world.

She even saved the sister, the mage-made sister who had brought so much death along with her when she'd appeared in Buffy's life.

And at the end of it all, in the growing light of a bright new day, Dawn had stumbled slowly and carefully down the stairs and ladders of that teetering tower of junk, only to find herself alone.

There was only her, in her bloodied dress, and the dead bodies of all the others, laying scattered and smashed and torn, all around her.

She sat down hard, eyes wide and streaming tears, and it was hours and hours before she came back to herself enough to start wondering what would happen to her now.

  
_ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _  


Interlude: Pianissimo

The area around the odd tower had been cleared of corpses, and the young girl who was the sole survivor of the unfortunate 'incident' had been discovered wandering nearby in a daze, and gently taken away in an ambulance to be checked over at the local hospital.

As the sun set the site lay abandoned, with portable barricades and long streamers of caution tape warning civilians to keep clear until the teetering tower could be safely demolished.

The police and the coroner's office personnel had been thorough; the lifeless forms of humans and demon servitors alike had been whisked away to be dealt with in the long-established fashion: humans to the morgue, demons to the dumping cavern beneath a small, otherwise unremarkable parking garage that adjoined the Sunnydale police station.

It was all handled with the ease of long practice, but there were two bodies that they hadn't dealt with properly, because there were two bodies that had not been found.

One was that of the Buffybot. Still lifeless and limp, eyes open wide and mouth parted in the midst of an emphatic 'Oooph' from the shock of the detonation which had damaged or destroyed some critical internal component. The bot's body lay tucked into a narrow gap between two of the junkyard's rusted hulks, where Dawn had managed to drag her, place her, and haphazardly cover her over with assorted bits of debris.

Despite her grief, despite her hopeless lethargy, it had seemed important to the girl to do at least that much to preserve that particular artifact, that machine that wore the face and form of her sister.

And then there was the second body that hadn't been found.

The body of the demon goddess.

Glory's body.

Where it had lain there was only a shallow depression in the bare earth; an oblong divot where the Slayer had smashed her down repeatedly with her enchanted hammer, till the ancient being was half-embedded in the ground when consciousness left her.

But when the authorities had arrived, searching the area in the brilliant, comforting light of early morning, there was nothing at all to be seen.

Now, however, as night fell and all wise folk sought the safety indoors, something _was_ visible, just there, where Glory had met her end.

The faintest of glimmers.

The merest gleam.

And someone with keen ears, had they been close by, might have caught the tiniest of sounds--a pure, sustained, crystalline tone, ringing softly.

No one was there, however, so no one saw, no one heard.

When the sun rose again the glimmer and gleam were lost in the glare, invisible to those who came to tear down the tower. The tone, if it remained, was thoroughly drowned by the sounds of voices and machinery.

It was very much as if there was nothing there at all....

  
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  


Day 3

Even through the numbness, even through the savage, paralyzing grief, Dawn could imagine how pathetic it looked.

To the people who worked there, the quiet, oh-so-respectful management and employees of the Shady Rest funeral home, the two of them standing alone in the room with the body was a sad commentary on how few ties the Summer's family really had. 

No friends, no family other than the two of them, Hank Summers and Dawn, awkwardly sharing an uncomfortable one-armed hug as they stared at the thing that used to be Buffy, lying there on display.

When Dawn turned her head to check again, she did manage to catch just a glimpse of Tandy fidgeting impatiently out in the wide corridor. Her father's girlfriend had been polite enough to her, and had even seemed to mean it when she offered her sympathies (kind of), but the _very_ pretty girl (just a year older than Buffy) had also made it clear that Hank was _hers_ , and that Dawn presence was not needed or wanted.

She'd hoped that wouldn't matter, that her father would rescue her from this uncertain situation she'd fallen into, but he'd barely said a word to her so far. Instead, he just stared at Buffy, the strong lines of his face drawn and anguished, tears running silently down his cheeks. And when that ended, some timeless time later (while Tandy paced, and fidgeted, and began issuing periodic, audible sighs from the hallway), Hank turned away from his daughter's remains and led Dawn over to the folding chairs arranged in neat rows for the dozens of grieving visitors who would never come.

"Dawn," he began, sitting down across from her, though his voice was low and thick and he had to clear his throat and start again, even as he wiped moisture from his face with a large hand.

"Dawn, I want you to know that it's nothing about you; it's not that there's _any_ thing wrong with you, okay?" She looked at him, still in that distant, nearly-numb place she'd been in since that morning at the tower, holding his gaze without blinking until he had to glance away before he continued.

"It's just that, well, we both know that you and I were never close. Not like Buffy and I were close; you know that, right?"

He looked back at her, for all the world like he was waiting for her to agree, for her to say it was all right.

She managed a tiny shrug, and he took that as permission to continue.

"And it wouldn't be right, dragging you off to Germany with us. The new project they have me working on, the black forest car factory, that's going to take a year at least, and you wouldn't be happy there, I know." He was looking down at the carpet now, rather than trying to meet her steady stare, and Dawn couldn't help but wonder exactly why her father was abandoning her. 

Her mind started drifting, thinking about that far-flung spell that had woven her imagined history as a little girl into the memories of her mother, her sister, and even the gang in Sunnydale--was her father's indifference towards her proof that the spell had failed to fully take hold in Hank's case?

Or was Dawn herself, the very idea and definition of the magical, artificial, false and deceitful _thing_ that the Key had been made to become, was she so very flawed and awful a creature that her father found her impossible to love?

She noticed that she'd started crying again without noticing, and belatedly she returned her attention to the voice pronouncing her fate.

"--a very nice place, actually. It's small, for a group facility, and they're highly-recommended; I checked it all out, nothing but the best for my little girl."

Incredibly, he tried to make that last part at least a little light and jaunty, eyes on hers again, reaching out to pat her awkwardly on the shoulder.

The only reply she could manage came out in a shaking whisper:

"You're putting me in a foster home?"

He took his hand back, and did his best to not notice her stricken look.

"It's more like a school for girls," he told her, a fake, salesman's smile just touching the corners of his mouth, though his eyes were troubled.

"A school I can't _leave_?"

He patted her shoulder again, pretending not to notice when she pulled away.

"C'mon, it'll be fine. Better than fine, it'll be an adventure, like... it'll be like you're living in those Harry Potter books you love so much."

She shook her head minutely.

"No, it won't," She whispered.

He heard her, she was sure he did, but still he kept right on going.

"Best of all, it's a place where you'll be with other girls your age; a place where you'll have brand new sisters to keep you company."

She didn't even bother answering that one. Her sister was there, visible just over his shoulder, still lying in the casket, lying in the box that Dawn had built for her, all unknowing, with every minute she'd spent in Sunnydale over the last six months.

She sat there, watching Buffy not move, or breathe, or live, as Hank Summers droned on about monthly allowances, about the hefty donations to this 'Starlight House' that would ensure she was treated well, and about how maybe, just maybe, he might be able to come and visit her for a few hours on Christmas, or failing that maybe at New Year's... or possibly he could manage Easter, or the fourth of July, provided he wasn't too busy with his work....

  
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Interlude: Legato

Three days had passed, and with the tower safely demolished and no longer threatening imminent collapse on any passersby, the old junkyard had returned to being just an old junkyard.

Once or twice a day someone would arrive with an item they needed to toss away, something too large or awkward or smelly for the garbage men to accept. Money would change hands, the old man who owned the place would pick a random spot to drop the rusted-out wheelbarrow or heap of rotten lumber, or moldy washing machine, and then he would go back to sitting in his little shack by the entrance, reading old magazines until the sun neared setting and it was time to go home.

And every night there was still that empty spot, overlooked and unnoticed, where a hellgoddess had fallen, beaten, and lain there a while, and then vanished with no one to see.

And the faint gleam was still there, and the glimmer as well, when the moonlight wasn't so bright as to hide it, and that faint, faint crystal ringing, that might just be the teeniest bit louder now than it had been.

And on this night, when all was (nearly) silent and (entirely) still, there came faint stirring in the air just over that spot in the ground; a movement and a brief darkness, and then--

_Ben found himself lying on the ground, and he immediately scrabbled his way to his feet, the bare dirt staining his knees, his hands, staggering a little as he managed to stand upright and find his balance, more or less._

 _He was dizzy, his head hurt, his_ everything _hurt, courtesy of the beating that Buffy girl had delivered to his other self, Glory._

_He froze, his thoughts skidding to an abrupt halt, and then he spoke the name out loud:_

_"Glory?"_

_Nothing. No voice in his head, no unbearable pressure pushing against his very soul as that enormous, ancient presence inhabited and infested his mortal body, filling it to nearly bursting. For the first time in as long as he could remember he was alone, no longer a trap set by those bastard Byzantium Knights to weaken and drain their invincible enemy. No longer part of a plan to win a war waged by a cult of warrior-priest fanatics against a single woman for more than sixteen hundred years._

_For the first time in his life, he was just... Ben._

_He laughed, winced when it sent shooting pains through his cracked ribs, then laughed again in spite of it._

_He was free. Finally and at last, he was free._

_It was too bad about the Slayer's friends; he had vague memories of the bitch-goddess smashing them to paste or ripping them to bloody pieces, but if their deaths were the price needed to buy his life back, then that blood had been well spent, and he had zero regrets concerning their fate._

_They'd known what they were getting into, after all, and none of them had seemed at all concerned about saving_ him.

_Shaking his head at the foolishness of so-called heroes, he finished crossing the junkyard, slipped out through a gap in the fence, turned right to head towards his apartment--_

_\--And fell forward, face-planting there on the sidewalk. He made no move at all to catch himself, for he was well and truly dead before he ever hit the ground._

The man's body lay where it fell, lifeless and inert, empty of the blazing essence that had sustained it for so long, unable to survive now when that vital life energy was absent.

Nearby, past the fence, in the junkyard, over that faint low spot in the dirt, there remained a barely-seen glimmer, a faintly-there gleam, and an ever-so-slightly louder ringing in the air.

  
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Day 4

It had been a nightmarish day, capping off a hellish week, but Shana was hopeful that the worst of it had finally passed.

She eyed the stacks of paperwork that were arrayed neatly on her large executive desk. There was still more left for her to do; there was _always_ more to do. With a sigh she tapped at a key on her computer's keyboard, bringing up the volume on the music that was streaming in one corner of the screen. The song was the latest from Cycle of the System, one of the bands managed by Starlight Music, and the young woman smiled as she recognized the distinctive style of the musician playing the guitar solo.

"Girl, you show off too much," She murmured as she worked her way through the legal forms before her. "That was supposed to be 'just filling in', not an audition for a spot in the band."

Of course, her foster sister had no reason to be modest; Aja Leith was well-known in the Los Angeles area as a talented session guitarist and live performer. She'd played on dozens of tracks for semi-famous artists, and even done a few smallish, regional tours with local bands.

Shana envied her sometimes. She was a musician herself; most of the girls who were lucky enough to find their way to the Starlight House for Girls tended to develop some level of interest in music. In her case, however, it had become something she only dabbled in, with most of her time split between her duties as co-director of the foster house and her efforts at breaking into the fashion industry. 

The song ended with a final intricate run of notes from Aja's guitar and Shana smiled wistfully. She still got to play with her friends every other weekend or so; she loved playing her drums, and Aja, Jerrica and Kimber had been her sisters in all but blood since she was twelve. Sadly, growing up meant responsibilities.

Responsibilities that were only going to grow, now that her foster father had died. 

She glanced at the open tab on her computer's screen, and the obituary highlighted there, at the top of the L.A. Times' digital edition:

"Emmett Benton--Businessman, Inventor, Philanthropist, dead at age 47".

There was an extensive writeup; Emmett had been a citizen of note for twenty years, but she turned away, the pain of his passing still threatening to overwhelm her though he'd died three days ago, never waking from the coma brought on by a sudden stroke over a week before that.

The worst part of it wasn't even her own grief, but that of her sisters, Jerrica and Kimber. Emmett was their actual father, and after his wife's death a decade earlier he'd dedicated himself to raising the girls, along with maintaining his modest business empire _and_ keeping his wife's passion project, Starlight House, in operation as well.

Shana knew Jerrica had been hit hard by her father's death, but Kimber was taking it far worse.

"At least it's nearly over," She told herself, glancing up to rest her eyes for a moment by gazing out through her office's window. "Funeral in the morning, the get-together here afterwards, to reassure the board of directors that the Starlight Foundation isn't going anywhere, and then things should settle down so that we can breathe again."

She went ahead and took an actual deep breath, letting the view of the grounds outside her window calm her. 

"It'll all be fine. He's gone, but Jerrica and I have been running things for two years now already, basically; the paperwork just makes it all official."

Noticing a car turning into the drive and proceeding up the wide curve towards the mansion, she nodded to herself, glancing down to check her day planner.

"And speaking of running things; time to meet the newest addition to the family."

Pushing her chair back and rising to her feet, she took a brief moment to make herself presentable: smoothing the wrinkles from her pencil skirt and slipping on her blazer. Checking the reflection in the wall mirror and tugging her sleeves into perfect alignment took only seconds. Turning her head from side to side and making a few adjustments to the masses of tightly curled hair that surrounded her head in a pale purple halo took only a few more, then she was heading down the hall, the heels of her shoes nearly silent on the short carpet.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  


Dawn had disliked the lawyer from her first sight of him, but that was probably because the man worked for her father. She was self-aware enough to realize that the sullen misery she was feeling was probably skewing her opinions; even though Hank himself had left for the airport already, his ridiculously young and attractive 'ladyfriend' in tow, the man sitting across from her now in the spacious back seat of the car had been nothing but professional.

"Here we are, Miss Summers," He announced, breaking the silence of the last fifty minutes, which was how long it had taken them to navigate the endless snarls of Los Angeles traffic and arrive in Brentwood (which she'd assumed would be some medium-sized town like Sunnydale, but in reality it was just a nicer-looking chunk of the general L.A. metroplex, which itself seemed to stretch into infinity is basically every direction except the west, where it hit ocean).

Dawn glanced out of the tinted window on her side and saw that they were pulling into the curved drive in front of an extremely large, rambling house, with a two-story tall main section, and a couple of lower extensions peeking out from behind the structure. 

Their car slowed to a stop in front of the building, and the lawyer (Matthias Cord, he'd told her earlier, as he handed her his card and then cordially invited her to get inside the car) reached inside his suit jacket and withdrew a small manila envelope. Handing it over, he regarded her with level, dispassionate eyes.

"That contains the first installment of your allowance, along with a charge card that will be honored by local businesses. Each month you'll receive one-thousand dollars in cash, along with a two hundred and fifty dollar clothing allowance on the card. I'll personally deliver your allowance on the first Monday of each month, at which time I will assess the quality of your housing and general care, and address any issues or shortfalls with the staff."

He extended another card to her, held between two fingers.

"This has a number where you can reach my voicemail. Please call if any problems arise which cannot wait until my monthly visit." He paused, and there _might_ have been the faintest twist at the corners of his lips before he continued.

"Your father has requested that you do _not_ attempt to contact him directly, though if you like you can give me short messages to pass along."

She looked down at the unopened envelope in her hands, and slowly took the white card with the phone number.

"I only have the one suitcase with me," She said, the words coming out in a quiet sort of monotone.

"The rest of your things are being collected from the house in Sunnydale now; they should be delivered tomorrow."

She nodded faintly, somehow still finding it hard to believe that this was really happening to her, that everyone was gone, that her Buffy was just _gone_ , and that she was here, in front of this strange house, where she was expected to... to....

"What do I _do_?" She asked the man, daring to look up and meet his gaze.

He looked back at her; handsome and uncaring.

"You stay here. You do at least the minimum required level of schoolwork, either at the local high school or here, via homeschooling. On your eighteenth birthday you become an adult, and can do what you like. On that day you will receive a generous financial package from your father, along with the money from the sale of the Sunnydale house, which will be held in trust until that time."

She had no words for that. They were going to sell the house? _Her_ house? The one where she'd lived with her mom and Buffy? She felt a huge sense of loss, and then a wave of realization that gave her a sudden sense that she might vomit, right then and there, all over Mr. Cord's immaculate pants and shoes.

Because that was when she remembered that _there was no one there_. There was no point in going back to the house in Sunnydale, because literally everyone she'd known there was dead now, and aside from that awful half-hour with her father where they'd seen Buffy, she hadn't even been able to go to any of the funerals.

If they'd had funerals at all for Giles or Anya, who as far as she knew, had no family at all. Spike certainly didn't have anyone who cared, though maybe Angel would have showed up to set fire to the coffin, just to make sure of things, if only there had been enough left of Spike to warrant one.

So no, there was no reason to go back; no one to see and nothing to be done. Not by a girl who wasn't a witch or a Slayer.

Dawn blinked back the tears, took a long, trembling breath and firmed her lips into a flat line.

"Okay," She managed, in a nearly steady voice.

Just that, but the man nodded. Opening his door instantly replaced the coolness of the car's interior with the glare and heat of the day outside, and he exited, circled around, and opened the door on her side, extending his hand to help her out.

For an instant she considered ignoring the courtesy, then decided that was both petty and useless, and accepted the gesture.

The driver had already extracted her single piece of luggage from the trunk, and Mr. Cord took it and led the way up the wide steps to the front door, which opened as they approached.

Looking at the woman, Dawn felt a faint stab of envy.

Attractive, and in her early twenties, the woman had dark skin and a loose, shoulder-length afro that was tinted pale purple, the quirky color failing to subtract one iota from her air of confidence and poise, and her outfit was pure business-casual chic.

"Hello," She greeted them, her smile easy and bright. "I'm Shana Elmsford, co-executive director of Starlight House."

The woman extended her hand, and the lawyer shook it without hesitation.

"Ms. Elmsford, I'm Matthias Cord, we spoke on the phone." She nodded in acknowledgement, and he indicated Dawn. "This is Miss Summers."

Dawn looked up at her; the woman was fairly tall already, and the very fashionable heels she wore put her another few inches up there, but her dark eyes were kind as she took a half step forward and smiled more gently.

"Hi, Dawn. You can call me Shana." Her expression turned sad, and when she continued her voice was softer. "I am so sorry to hear about your sister and your friends." She glanced at the lawyer, then back to Dawn. "What was it? Some kind of gas explosion, I think they said?"

Dawn's reply was automatic:

"Gang related. PCP."

Honestly, she'd said it without even thinking, the same lie she'd heard basically every other night or so on the news and in the papers, during the years she'd lived in Sunnydale.

Shana looked nonplussed, and Mr. Cord cleared his throat, drawing Dawn's attention back to him.

"I'll leave you to settle in then, Miss Summers." He gestured to the bundle she still held, the envelope and the card. "You have my number. I'll see you in a few weeks."

He nodded to the older woman.

"Ms. Elmsford; a pleasure."

And with that he was gone, walking back down to the car, leaving her there on the steps, suitcase at her feet. From somewhere on the far side of the city, a passenger jet lifted off, climbing and turning towards the east, and she wondered if her father was on it. She wondered if he might possibly change his mind someday, and let her be his daughter....

She bit down on her lip to keep it from quivering, and her shoulders shook, just once.

"Hey."

Shana reached down, and very gently took hold of Dawn's hand.

"You're not alone, Dawn. You have a home _here_ , now, at Starlight House, and the whole reason this place exists is so that people like us don't have to be alone."

Almost in spite of herself, that got her attention, and she frowned faintly.

"'People like us'?", She asked.

The woman nodded, and gestured for her to get her suitcase and follow, moving the few steps to the front door.

"That's right. I grew up here; I was one of the first few girls that Emmett and Jacqui took in when they started the Starlight Foundation."

Suitcase in hand, Dawn slipped through the door Shana held, and entered the house.

"I know you might not believe it yet, but trust me, Dawn. You're going to love it here, and I know for a fact that everyone is looking forward to meeting you."

  
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  


_::KsshhCRUNCHksshh::_

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Jerrica Benton knew that she was supposed to be greeting the new girl right about now, and welcoming her to their extended family, but at the moment she was fully-occupied in dealing with a category five Hurricane Kimber.

"---Doesn't matter _what_ you say, Jerrica! I'm _not_ going to that stupid funeral, and I'm _not_ going to that stupid _party!_ "

_::KaPSSSHHHksshh::_

The two of them were in the Rothsway sitting room, named for one of the generous donors who had helped Emmett Benton establish Starlight House over a decade earlier. The space was gorgeously furnished, since it was used for private meetings with the wealthy benefactors that helped keep the foundation funded. There were three plush sofas, assorted comfy chairs, and a plethora of framed photos on the walls. The rugs were handwoven, the side tables antique, and amply adorned with assorted knick-knacks with rich histories and considerable value....

_::KrrshCRASH::_

...Which was proving to be unfortunate, since Kimber was several minutes into a tantrum that was starting to get pretty expensive, given the way she was punctuating each shout with some vintage bauble being hurled across the room or flung at the floor with all her might.

Jerrica winced, and tried to move towards her little sister, but the red-haired teen refused to let her get close, circling around to the other side of the largest sofa and glaring back at her with blue eyes brimming with furious tears.

"Kimber," She tried, keeping her tone as gentle and coaxing as she could manage. "It isn't like that at all. It isn't going to be a _party_ , just a gathering so that people can pay their respects. You know, dad's friends, people from the Foundation's board of directors--"

_::whirrrKSHHH::_

That was a framed picture from the wall, one showing the first group of Starlight Girls from years before--Shana, Aja, and five others, with an eleven-year-old Jerrica right there with them, hugging a laughing, smiling, five-year-old moppet version of Kimber, who was all bright eyes and sunburned cheeks.

" _Ha!_ See?!" 

_::whirrrKshSPSHH::_

The teenager blindly grabbed another photo frame off the wall and spun it across the room, not aimed at Jerrica specifically, but still close enough to make her flinch away as it smashed into a grouping of rare crystalware on a shelf behind her.

"That's exactly what I mean! You don't even care that daddy's dead! This is all just a way for you to get those fossils into a room together so that you can shake them down for more _money!_ "

Jerrica flinched again, this time because that accusation landed just a little too close to home.

The 'wake' they had planned to the next day, after the funeral and burial had taken place, largely _was_ a way to convince their donors to keep the Starlight Foundation on their list of active charities, even after the founder, her father, had passed away. 

She hated the fact that she had to think about things like that when all she wanted to do was cry, and scream, and break things like Kimber was doing. 

Her father was dead. He was going to be buried tomorrow, and here she was, worrying about how the balance sheets would look next quarter... but someone had to do it. 

Kimber was still just sixteen, and she'd been the baby of the family even back when it was just the two of them along with their mom and dad. Later, when the first 'Starlight Girls' had entered the picture, they'd all been roughly Jerrica's age, and suddenly there were even more big sisters to spoil and dote on cute little Kimber.

It was hard not to be envious. Jerrica knew herself to be bright, competent, and well-able to handle the business side of her father's legacy. Kimber had none of that, instead possessing a beguilingly innocent and outgoing personality, a ridiculous amount of musical talent, and to top it all off she had a fresh-faced prettiness that was in the process of developing into a truly stunning beauty.

Her sister had all of that, but right now she was just a teenage girl, angrily crying because she missed her father.

Jerrica sighed.

"Won't you at least come to the funeral?"

Kimber paused, another picture frame dangling from her hand, forgotten, and then she scowled and shook her head.

"No. They're going to put daddy in the _ground._ I don't want to see that. I--", She swallowed painfully, and looked down at the photo she held, not really seeing it. "I don't want to remember him like that."

_That's fair_ , Jerrica thought to herself. _I wish I didn't have to remember anything from the last couple of years. Dad was so sick, for so long, and no matter how hard I begged him he wouldn't stop working. Even when he let Shana and I do most of the Foundation work, he was still always off somewhere in the city, working on his secret project. We never did find out just what it was he was doing; something about a new kind of movie projector, sort of, was all he ever told us. I'm sure he thought he would have time to finish it; the doctors thought he had months more, maybe even another year, but then the stroke came out of nowhere and cut things short._

Jerrica started to move around the sofa so that she could give her sister a hug, then thought better of it. The two of them _were_ close, in spite of how far their interests had diverged lately, but she knew from experience that even though Kimber _looked_ calmer now, once her temper had been roused it took a fair while to fully subside.

So instead she settled for....

"Then at least show up at the wake, just for a few minutes."

That had Kimber instantly back on the defensive, eyes narrowing and a fiercely determined pout announcing her feelings even before she--

"Some of the staff from Starlight Music will be there," Jerrica continued blandly, as if she hadn't noticed the immanent explosion. "You know, Sharla Derrickson, a few of the PR people, Eric Raymond, probably even a couple of the bands will show up."

Her sister stopped short, all the rage and fury diverted in an instant, replaced by something entirely different.

"Oh. Um... Eric's going to be there?"

Jerrica nodded, smiling a little inside as she watched Kimber's not-so-secret crush on the music executive work its magic and reorder all of the younger girl's priorities of just a few moments ago.

"Well, I might come by and just say hi to everybody at least," She said, fingers twirling long strands of that flaming red hair around and around as she stared off into space. "You know, just to be polite."

"Uh huh."

Jerrica's humor at the situation was real, but also maybe a teeeeny bit uneasy.

_Seeing her like this is cute and all; it's always funny to make little Kimber's brain short circuit over a boy, but so help me if Eric ever, EVER actually takes advantage of her, I'll fire his smooth-talking ass sooooo fast--_

She stopped herself short, shaking her head in rueful denial.

_No, that's silly, it would never happen. Eric Raymond is a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them. He knows none of us would stand for anything like that. Besides, he's done great work as the COO of Starlight Music while Dad was sick, and I've seen him with Kimber plenty of times. He's always a complete gentleman around her, and obviously just playing along with the silly schoolgirl crush thing so that her feelings won't be hurt._

Reassured that there was nothing to worry about on that front, she took a few seconds to survey the wreckage of the room. Two of the overstuffed chairs had been flipped over before she'd even understood what the argument was about, and the rest of the damage from Kimber's conniption fit was strewn all over the place.

"So, are you going to clean this up?"

Coming out of her daydream reverie, her sister looked at her curiously, glanced down at the shards and pieces and bits around her, and said one word:

"No."

And then she walked out of the room.

Jerrica watched her go, unsurprised, and then shook her head and leaned into the hallway.

"Becky! Ba Nee! Can you come here for a minute?"

  
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  


The inside of the house had Dawn feeling a little confused. On the one hand, it absolutely _was_ some kind of mansion, with most of the rooms being large (and some of them achieving 'huge'), with high ceilings, obviously expensive furnishings, and tons of antique or artsy things hanging from the walls or displayed on shelves.

On the other hand, as Shana led her through the place, she spotted a room that was open and accessible, obviously frequently used, that was filled with a couple dozen battered, hand-me-down chairs, arranged in a circle, while another space looked dedicated to arts and crafts, with scarred and careworn tables and the distinct smell of watercolor paint and modeling clay.

Even in one of the nicer rooms they walked through, a lovely space with polished hardwood floors and crystal chandeliers, she could clearly see many paired lines of old, worn track marks on the parquet tiles, where skates or skateboards had left their marks, over and over again over many years.

Shifting her suitcase awkwardly to the other side to give her tired hand a rest, Dawn dared a question.

"Ms. Elmsford? Is this a real house? That you also keep foster kids in, I mean?"

That probably hadn't been the clearest way to ask what she was wondering, but the woman seemed to understand.

"The house belonged to Emmett Benton and his wife Jacqueline. Years ago they started taking in foster girls, and raised us alongside their own daughters. Nowadays, this is still a private residence; Jerrica and Kimber inherited it and they live here, and so do I, but the mansion is a foster home too, operated under our non-profit, the Starlight Foundation." The wide hallway they were moving through at that moment had several clusters of framed photos along both walls, and Shana stopped and indicated one that looked recent.

"See? This is us now... or rather, it's from last month. We're up to eighteen girls living here, plus me and a couple others who help out. You'll bring us to nineteen, though we really don't want to ever go past twenty or so at any one time." She waited for Dawn to look away from the picture of tanned, grinning, and obviously happy girls posing and mugging fiercely at the camera. When she had Dawn's gaze again she did one of those warm, earnest smiles that seemed to come so sincerely.

"This isn't a boarding school, though we make sure our girls get a good education. It isn't a summer camp, though we so our best to have fun and make friends. And it definitely, em _phatically_ is not some miserable, Dickensian orphanage where the girls all wear rags while they're starved, neglected and ignored." Dawn's breath caught at that, and she bit her lip to keep from speaking as the woman went on. "Dawn, this is Starlight House, and it can be your home, a _real_ home, if you give it a chance."

That little speech left Dawn feeling a little stunned.

_Uhhh, wow? I mean, sounds great and all, but how many times have you practiced that on kids like me? And how would you feel about me if you knew that I'm not nearly as old as I look? That I was made from some eternal relic and a little of Buffy's blood just a few months ago? Would I still be welcome?_

_Also... what does 'Dickensian' mean?_

Vocabulary deficiencies aside, there was no denying that hearing those words had set Dawn's heart to aching, and she really-really had to fight the urge to give this complete stranger a long and desperate hug.

She didn't know if that would have actually happened in the next few seconds or not, because the moment was interrupted by a high-pitched voice ringing down the hall from somewhere nearby.

"I'm not going and you can't _make_ me, Jerrica!" A much quieter, slightly lower-pitched voice murmured something she couldn't make out, then-- " _No!_ No. I. _Won't!_ " More murmurs, with a tone of entreaty, but the shouter apparently wasn't having it. "You can _say_ that all you want, but you're _not_ mom, even if you act like you _are!_ And if _she_ were here she'd be on _my_ side!"

Shana cleared her throat uncomfortably, and Dawn gave her a curious look. The woman's skin was far too dark to visibly flush with embarrassment, though it seemed like she was trying her best.

"Here, let's go this way instead."

Taking Dawn's elbow, she lead them off to the right, away from that part of the rambling house.

"Is there something going on?" Dawn asked uncertainly.

"No... well, yes, there is, but it's nothing to do with you." She sighed. "Basically, our foster father, the man I told you about, who started the Starlight foundation, he died, and all of us are upset about it." 

"Oh. Sorry."

It felt like there should be words of sympathy that she could offer, but at the moment that seemed to her like someone in a desert, dying of thirst, finding another person out there in the same situation and offering them a drink--she was still too lost in her own grieving to give anyone else comfort; it was taking all her energy and determination to keep herself upright and moving, instead of falling down and curling up in a ball right there on the floor.

"Sorry," She repeated; her absolute best effort under the circumstances, and the only word that came to mind.

Shana nodded graciously, just as if she'd received some valuable nugget of wisdom and compassion.

"Thank you, Dawn." She gestured. "It's this way."

They moved on, and it was clear that this was the long way around, passing through lots of rooms and short halls as they circled as far from the arguing voices as possible. 

Then, as Shana took them through a largish room towards a doorway on the far side, Dawn received a shock so surprising that for just a few moments it almost succeeded in driving the sorrow and anguish of losing Buffy from her mind.

There was _magic_ here.

She stopped short in surprise, the suitcase slipping unnoticed from her hand to thump down on the carpet as she stared.

The room was dominated by a beautiful baby grand piano, its black surface gleaming, the cover in the open position, black and white keys gleaming enticingly, the entire thing looking like a functional piece of sculpture... and it was surrounded by a faintly glowing web of light, in colors she'd never seen before.

_What_.

She was faintly aware that Shana had stopped as well, and was giving her a bemused look, but she couldn't look away from the sight in front of her, even as she started walking towards it with small, hesitant steps.

_No, seriously: What?_

It was magic. The little trails of light, hanging motionless in the air like a warped gridwork sketched by that old artist guy who liked freaky stairways. The odd sense of _presence_ that the instrument itself seemed to radiate, a feeling of being exactly what it was, only _more_ , somehow.

When she was close enough to touch it she made a very deliberate decision to not do that, and instead looked back at her guide.

"Um. Nice... piano?"

Shana's sudden grin flashed white against her dark complexion as she laughed.

"Yes, it _is_ a piano, and a nice one. A little old, maybe, but nice."

Just that; just a normal answer, and not 'Drat, girl! You have discovered our secret magical Armageddon thingie! For that you must _die_!'.

Dawn frowned a little, and looked back at the piano.

It was just sitting there, looking pretty and massive and pianoish, not really doing anything except existing, and then she paused for a second, and blinked a couple of times, and realized something else.

_Wait. I can see that this thing is magic._

_Since when can I see things that are magic?_

Because this wasn't actual, normal light her eyes were seeing; Shana's lack of a reaction seemed proof of that. Besides, the glowing lattice wasn't just pinks and yellows and oranges and teals, there were at _least_ two others in there that she couldn't name, colors she'd never seen in her entire, short life.

_Maybe something Glory did changed me. Maybe being next to the portal when it opened, or having my Keyness be used to activate the resonance point or whatever it was that made it so that they needed the tower to reach that particular spot?_

Shana moved to stand at her elbow, watching as Dawn leaned forward a little to peer down into the workings of the thing, on display since the cover was propped open.

"Do you play?" The woman asked.

Dawn shook her head, staring in confused wonder at what she saw in there. The interior would have been pretty neat anyway; the wonderfully complicated arrangement of strings and braces, the gleaming metal and lovingly smoothed and polished wood. But there was magic in there too, the heart of the web she'd already glimpsed. 

Every wire had tiny spirals traveling up and down it, every tuning pin, every velvet-covered hammer , every lever and damper had a glow or sparkle to it, in all the colors she'd already seen and a few others to boot. None of it looked especially _powerful_... certainly nothing in there approached the awful, chaotic glare of the hellgate she'd opened briefly. This was all very soft, all just sparkles and soothing swirls, and everything was orderly, regimented, almost clockwork in the way it looked and felt to her new sense.

It was actually very pretty, even soothing to look at, and she wondered what it sounded like.

"No," Dawn added, in answer to the woman's question. "Nobody in our family is musical at all, really. I guess I sing along to the radio or whatever, like everybody does."

A flicker of disappointment showed on Shana's face before she hid it behind that open, accepting smile.

"Well, there's always music to sing to around here; most of the girls learn to play an instrument at least a little. Jacqui Benton was famous back in the day, as a singer, and Emmett's first company, Starlight Music, is what gives us a lot of the funding we need to run Starlight House and our other charities."

She reached out and ran a hand along the smooth, dark-polished wood of the piano. 

"Emmett even completely rebuilt this piano; bought it used and damaged at auction and spent a whole summer restoring it when I was still girl, and brand new here."

Dawn felt her eyes widen just a little, and looked back into the muted, soothing light show inside the thing, keeping her voice casual.

"Really? Did Mr. Benton do that kind of thing a lot?"

"Some. Just between me and you, he fancied himself a bit of an inventor; he was always tinkering with some little gadget, but he never had a real commercial success with anything he made. Just like this piano; it's nice, he did a good job repairing it, but it's still just a piano."

Dawn lowered her head a little, so that her long hair spilled forward and hid her face until she could get her expression under control. It took her a few seconds before she was able to look up and meet Shana's eyes, all guileless and innocent:

"Yep. Nothing special."

  
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

When they finally reached the rear of the house, Dawn spent a moment trying to organize her sense of the mansion's internal geography.

_Okay, it's not that this place is as big as an airport or something, even if it feels that way to me. It_ is _big, but mostly it's just all... jumbled. Like whoever built the place either didn't know what he was doing, or maybe he actually wanted it to feel like a house version of that hedge maze in The Shining, where you can wander around and around until you freeze to death, only in here you'd just die of old age, and then the maid would find your skeleton in a corner one day years later when she's vacuuming._

That line of musing was cut short when she got her first look at actual 'Starlight Girls'.

Starting as she and Shana had left the piano room, Dawn had been hearing noises. Not the unknown girl shouting and having a meltdown from the front of the house, no, this was coming from ahead of them. There were voices and there was music, music performed with mistakes and missteps, but tons of energy and _volume_ too, along with occasional cheers, laughter, and even a boo or two as a girl sang:  
_  
~~I can see me standing on the stage  
~~I can see me being all the rage  
~~I can see me going very far  
~~I can see me a staaarrrr_

 _~~I can see me itching to perform  
~~I can see me singing up a storm  
~~I can see me a staaarrrr  
_  
Dawn's nose scrunched up like she'd smelled something bad.

 _Wow, that is very, very, VERY cringy. And her voice isn't great either;_ I _can probably do better than that._

She and Shana reached what seemed to have been the original back-most room of the rambling mansion, where wide double doors would have opened up onto a patio or veranda. At some point an addition had been constructed, which now created a large, airy enclosed space between the house and a sizable outbuilding, which was accessible through doors on the far side of the room where the musicians were performing.

Dawn's feet came to a stop, seemingly of their own volition, and she hung back at the border between mansion and girl's area, feeling a tiny bit of unexpected panic at the scene before her.

_There's just so... Many of them._

There were four girls over on the left, where amplifiers stood off to the sides and a for-real miniature version of those lighting bars at a concert hung from the ceiling, giving it the feel of a stage without actually being elevated or anything. Three of the girls were playing instruments, looking like they were having fun and being totally into it, but the yellow-haired girl doing the vocals had it turned up to eleven. 

Or possibly fourteen. 

She was strutting, she was bounding and jumping, she was yelling into the microphone more than she was singing and delivering all the attitude of a seasoned rock star as she spun and ran (and at one point tripped) her way around that side of the room.

The audience was more girls, obviously, a full dozen at least, and all at least generally in Dawn's age range, looking between twelve and sixteen. 

When the song ended the girls watching went wild, cheering, clapping, and generally acting like it had been the greatest performance ever, which the band girls received with happy grins and waves, before slipping off their instruments and plopping down into some of the beanbag chairs that were scattered around.

As Dawn watched from the doorway, Shana made a point of leaning in to give each of the performers words of praise and encouragement, although the singer didn't seem to need any.

"Didja see, Shana?! Did you see me up there?! Did ya hear?!" 

The girl was all but dancing in place, like a hyperactive puppy who needed to pee _really_ badly, but the woman just laughed, giving her a brief hug.

"I saw you, Ashley, and I heard you too. You were great!"

That got a huge smile from the girl, one that straddled the line between happy and smug.

"Tell Jerrica that I'm almost ready, okay? She can sign me up at Starlight Music and I'll make us a _million_ dollars, easy!"

If Dawn's eyes had rolled any harder she would have knocked herself down, but Shana just nodded amiably. 

"You're doing great, Ashley, and you are too, Lela, Deirdre, Becky." The other girls beamed, and Shana squeezed Ashley's shoulder reassuringly. "Just keep practicing and we'll see."

Turning back to the room at large, Shana raised her voice.

"Everybody, I'd like to you to meet someone new who'll be staying with us. Dawn--?"

She paused when she saw that Dawn was hanging back. Hanging back so far, in fact, that she wasn't even technically inside the room with the rest of them, halfway peering around the edge of the doorway.

A look of concern flitted across Shana's pretty face, and she looked down at the crowd of girls who were staring at the stranger with varying degrees of interest, curiosity, and excitement. As one, the small crowd of tweens and teens moved forward in a sort of loose mob, greetings and questions spilling from a dozen pairs of lips.

And Dawn nearly lost it.

Four days.

It had only been _Four Days_ since everyone had died. Willow, Xander, Tara, Anya, Giles, Spike... and Buffy. All of them dead, all of them gone, and it had only been four days.

And even before that, being captured by the scab minions, being helpless and alone for all those hours while a deranged hellgoddess spent way too much time in Dawn's personal space while cycling through phases of being, by turns: mean, silly, serious, cute, thoughtful, fashion-obsessed, playful, cruel, cryptic, petty, sympathetic, profound, and oh-by-the-way, also being _absolutely terrifying while she described in detail Dawn's immanent and excruciating death_... it had all added up.

Also, it was all still there, inside her head, along with the visuals of all those minions swarming Giles and the others, of seeing them literally clawing bloody chunks out of Tara as she lay screaming, of Giles being taken down while he tried to approach the fallen figure of Ben, probably to help the poor guy after all of the Glory-ness had been beaten out of him with that huge hammer.

None of that had gone away, even if Dawn had been managing to think past it, and work around it, so that she could go on dressing herself and moving from place to place and speaking to people in actual words and sentences.

And, silly as it might seem to anyone else, seeing that small crowd of noisy, harmless girls approaching was enough to make her breath catch in her throat, and a wave of nausea to surge and crash through her middle while sweat popped out over every inch of her body.

"Everyone, _stop!_ "

Shana's voice cut sharply through the babble, and everyone stopped, the front-most of the mob just out of arm's reach of where Dawn stood.

They all looked back at the woman questioningly, and Shana hurriedly pushed through them to reach Dawn's side.

"Sorry, everyone, she's had a long day already, and really needs to rest before meeting you all. We can do the hellos later."

There were a few 'awws' of disappointment from the girls, but they parted amiably enough as Shana led a nervous Dawn past, and through the doorway at the far left of the common room. A short hallway led past the open door to a large bathroom, then turned right, giving a glimpse of another large common room beyond, this one much quieter, with several heavy tables, some large bookcases, and a few laptops that seemed to be there for anyone to use.

A flight of stairs led upwards, and the two of them climbed slowly. Halfway up, Shana spoke, very quietly.

"I'm so sorry, Dawn. I've read your file, I know you've been through a lot, with your sister and all your friends dying. I should have asked, and made sure you were up to being social."

"It's okay," Dawn managed, though she was still shaking a little in the aftermath of her very first real panic attack. 

Shana shook her head firmly, stopping them as they reached the top of the stairs.

"No, it's not okay. Everyone here has a lot on their minds right now, but it's my responsibility to take care of you. I hope you'll give a chance to do better."

Since she didn't know exactly what kind of answer the woman was waiting for, Dawn awkwardly repeated the easy one.

"...It's okay."

There was a deep look of concern in Shana's eyes, and when Dawn looked away she gave a little sigh.

"All right. Well, here's your room."

The top of the stairs opened onto a long hall, with doors spaced along either side. The fourth one on the right led to a fair-sized room, with a little bathroom visible through a door on one side, and two beds sharing the space, with closet doors, a little table, and a window finishing things off.

There was also a girl sitting cross-legged on the far bed, looking back at them.

She was young, maybe ten, with her blonde hair in two pigtails, and a powder blue sweatshirt a few sizes too big for her pulled over whatever else she was wearing. There was a large book open in her lap, and Dawn felt her heart sink as she recognized it as one of the infamous 'Time-Life' series 'Mysteries of the Unknown'. Giles had had the entire set at his apartment, as a sort of general barometer measuring how the uninformed public viewed various actual supernatural events and phenomena. 

And if there was one thing in the world that Dawn didn't want to deal with in this new place, it was some wannabee Agent Mulder raving about magic and mysticism.

"Hi there!" The girl chirped, her bright eyes taking in every detail, flicking up to Dawn's eyes, her hair, down to her suitcase, her shoes, to the bracelet she wore, then to the earring in her left ear, and the bare earlobe on the right (She'd lost that one sometime this morning, probably when the lawyer picked her up at the hotel where her father had put her up for the night).

"Oooh! You're the new girl, right? Mariesa told me I was getting a roommate. I'm Terri, nice to meet you!"

Dawn opened her mouth to reply, but Terri was still going.

"I'm so excited to have a new friend, and I think we'll get along great I hope you don't mind sleeping with the lights on because I always leave at least two going at night sometimes three because volume twenty-six says that spirit creepers and astral leeches can cross world boundaries at night but only in shadow and darkness so I have that covered in case the vibrations from my crystals aren't enough though they probably are only you can't be too careful and your eyes are really pretty sort of blue-green which is exactly the same color as the mana stones that Aztec priests used to channel the life energy of ritual sacrifices and I read that they only used volcanic glass for their ceremonial knives cause those were best to cut out hears and organs do you really only have one suitcase that doesn't seem like enough for someone to have and did you know you're missing an earring did it fall out because I'll help you look for it or we can ask the other girls to help we do group projects like that all the time or maybe you only wear one earring 'cuz you want to be edgy that's cool Ashley does that sort of thing all the time she thinks she's soooo cool only she's not now Aja is cool sometimes we get to listen to her practice and it's awesome she plays in front of real people and stuff and like I said there's no need to worry about anything evil getting in here while we sleep I have some extra crystals I can loan you till you get your own and did you see any of the ghosts in the house yet it's really really old and there's a cowboy and a cat and a little boy who died in a fire or at least I think it's a little boy it could be a dog I only saw it the one time and not very clearly because I might have been sleeping or just dreaming I was sleeping but definitely a ghost for sure just be nice to them and they're friendly oh your hair is really long can I brush it I promise not to pull too hard I just keep mine braided since that time Becky put chewing gum in my hair and she swears she didn't know it would be that hard to get out and Jerrica grounded her for a month and made her apologize but it's still not worth the risk if you ask me and if you want we can cut yours shorter to make it less of a target and did I ask yet if you were okay with sleeping with the lights on?"

Silence, blessed silence rang through the room, broken only by the soft _\--click--_ of Dawn's mouth snapping shut.

Nothing then, just Terri staring and smiling at Dawn, waiting for an answer to... whatever _that_ had been.

Dawn looked up at Shana.

"No. _Please_ no."

She wasn't proud. She was fully prepared to plead, while on her knees, if that's what it took.

Shana, however, just tilted her head to the side a little, visibly digesting Terri's word spewage, along with Dawn's request, then she looked down and met her eyes.

"That's fair," She said, and led the way back into the hallway. "Thank you, Terri, but never mind; we'll make other arrangements."

Outside the room, Dawn breathed a trembling sigh of relief.

"Thank you soo much." 

Shana quirked a little half smile while looking up and down the hallway.

"You're welcome, but we don't have a lot of other options here...."

From downstairs in the big common room another song started up, this time with someone a lot less talented or at least less practiced playing the electric guitar, with constant fumbles and backtracking, while someone else tried their hand at the keyboards. From the sound of it, that person was using their clenched fists to pound at the keys, and even at this distance the volume was considerable. An instant later, a dark-haired girl stomped her way up the stairs at full speed, squealing at the top of her lungs while two more girls thundered up the steps in hot pursuit, both of them laughing and one of them throwing handfuls of shredded paper scraps at her fleeing target.

Dawn hunched her head, scrunched her eyes shut tight, and wondered how she was ever going to do this.

"Here. Dawn, here."

She opened her eyes, and saw Shana's extended hand.

Hesitantly she took it, and the concerned look on the woman's face relaxed slightly.

"It's okay, Dawn. We can fix this. Come with me."

Then it was back down the stairs, around the corner and along the short downstairs hall.

_Wait. Is that another magic thingie in there?_

She craned her head, trying to confirm the brief glimpse she'd had of something glowing in those odd colors, back in the big study room with the tables and the books, but it was too late, they were coming into the common room, and she didn't want to spill the secret of her special sight to Shana. She just kept her eyes down instead, and did her best to ignore the looks and whispers from the other girls as they walked back to the entrance to the main house.

Once through the first couple of rooms, Shana turned and headed them down a corridor Dawn hadn't seen before.

"Not used to having a big, noisy family around, huh?" Shana asked, a mischievous sparkle in her eye.

"Not really. It was just me and my mom and my sister, and mom was always off working." She paused, working her mouth, and tried to keep her voice from cracking. "My sister was older, and worked at her job a lot, when she wasn't with her friends. I guess I spent a lot of time by myself."

Shana looked sympathetic.

"Sounds lonely."

Dawn shook her head, determined not to cry, and mostly succeeding.

"No, she loved me; Buffy, I mean. She proved it. She's the reason I didn't die during the... gang-related... thing. Because she saved me."

"Oh." The normally composed Shana looked unsure of where to go from _there_ , though she eventually found the thread and spoke again. "Well, our policy here at Starlight House is that you make friends; we very strongly encourage that." Seeing Dawn's stricken look, she made a little half-shrug gesture with her hands and shoulders. "That said, there's no rush. This house is a big old thing; the man who built it, almost a hundred years ago, had an odd way of organizing things. There are lots of odd corners and extra rooms that we don't really use for anything, just sitting empty. If you want, we can find a place for you on the second floor, where the maid's quarters used to be. If that's all right with you?"

A week ago, Dawn would have greeted this happy news with a _squeee_ , and maybe a little Xander-inspired happy dance.

The world of right now was a much darker and emptier place, and so she settled for a relieved nod, and the biggest smile she could dredge up... which wasn't saying much, but Shana smiled in acknowledgment of the effort.

Coming out of the hall, the two of them reached the foot of the main house's main stairway, meeting a girl coming from the other direction, also heading for the stairs.

"Hey, Kimber," Shana said. "This is Dawn."

The girl, looking maybe sixteen years old, nodded politely and waved vaguely in Dawn's direction as she passed by without slowing and headed up the stairs.

"Hey, Dawn."

And in that instant, as she passed by just a foot or two away, Dawn's mind went completely blank as she stared.

_Fwahdookerguh?_

_Buwuhseedurr?_

The girl was beautiful. Really, _really_ beautiful, with delicate, doll-like features, gorgeous blue eyes, and a mane of hair that made Dawn feel a rare pang of jealousy. She was proud of her own waist-length mane, but this girl's hair--Kimber's hair, was nearly as long, had an insane amount of volume and shimmer and bounce and yet _more_ volume, and finished things off by being a jaw-dropping shade of intense magenta-red that defied the laws of physics just as thoroughly as any magic.

And speaking of magic....

_She's magic. She's glowing with it, like the piano, only in her it's alive and warm, not some kind of clockwork thing._

This power was even softer than the muted forces bound to that instrument, gentle washes of light that shimmered faintly in her skin and in those eyes, glimmering along every strand of hair and trailing in her wake as she climbed the stairs and went off to wherever she was going on the second floor.

"She's _prettyyyyyyyy,_ " Dawn whispered, not even realizing she'd spoken aloud until she heard Shana's rueful chuckle.

"Yes, that's happening a lot, lately. Our little Kimber is going to break a lot of hearts if she isn't careful."

Dawn barely heard her.

She was still seeing those eyes, the hair, that face, and--

_That Magic._

 _What_ was _that? Is she not human? Nobody's acting like they have an elf or a demon living in the house, and anyway I refuse to believe that someone that gorgeous is a demon._

_Maybe she's just naturally magic, like a Slayer?_

"Guh," Dawn managed, the sound strangled as she tried to process too many concepts at once.

_Slayer!_

_No, wait--no, no way. Even if I'm brand new at the magic-sight thing, the Slayer power has to be more sharp and pointy and angry than that. The stuff around her was like, I don't know, like if butterflies and starlight were whispering poetry at each other or something._

Dawn's heart was beating faster than normal, and her face and fingertips were tingling. There was something almost dizzying whirling through her brain and body, and somehow everything felt lighter and less awful than it had at any point since she'd been grabbed and taken to face Glory.

_She's so pretty._

_Also there's a mystery here, something is going on with these people and this house and that's a thing I should figure out, assuming I actually am going to be staying here and not running away or something...._

_WOW she's pretty._

_Her name is Kimber._

A very gentle hand touched her elbow, and when Dawn's eyes focused she saw Shana watching her, a little crease visible between her eyebrows.

"Dawn, you zoned out for a minute there. Are you going to be okay?"

That was a tough question, and she hated being pinned down to a definite yes or no when magic was involved, and then there was the thing where her heart was fluttering and mouth was still dry for some inexplicable reason that might or might not be related to the impossible color of Kimber's hair or the shape of her lips.

"...Maybe." She said, finally, and took a breath to try and clear her head. "Yeah, I'd definitely say 'maybe', but that's still a lot better than I thought it would be." Starting up the stairs, for the first time since she'd arrived she was the one leading the way. "Let's go and see what's next."

  
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  


Interlude: Fermata

After delivering the girl to the odd little orphanage that the client had been maneuvered into choosing, Matthias Cord instructed his driver to return him to the office.

Once dropped off at the curb in front of the imposing downtown skyscraper, he'd hefted his briefcase, straightened his tie, and run a confident hand back through the stylish swoop of his dark hair before entering the lobby of his law firm. 

Inside, he went directly to the elevator, and pressed the single unmarked button located above all the rest, the button made of polished onyx and jet.  
_  
\---And_

_\------A_

_\---------Timeless_

_\------------Time_

_\---------------Passed_

_\------------------While_

_\---------------------Worlds_

_\------------------------Spun  
_  
The elevator doors opened, he stepped out, and then walked exactly twenty-one steps forward into what looked to his eyes like a white and formless void. The air (which wasn't precisely actual air) smelled like burnt amber and raspberry ice cream.

Upon reaching the proper spot he stood, raised his head, and addressed the emptiness.

"It's done. The girl is in place."

There was silence for the span of a long, slow breath, then:  
_  
\----Adequate.  
\----Precognitive Visions  
\----Dictate No  
\----Further Action  
\----At This  
\----Time_

_\----Artifact  
\----Will Proceed  
\----Along World  
\----Lines Reaching  
\----Proper Alignment  
\----And Positioning  
\----In Due  
\----Course_

_\----Resume  
\----Duties And  
\----Know We  
\----Are Somewhat  
\----Pleased  
_  
Matthias nodded respectfully, turned, and paced a slow and careful course directly back to the elevator. He made a point of counting again, and as usual the return trip took twice as many steps, plus one.

Pushing the button for the fifty-third floor, he hummed a little tune, not really that disturbed by anything that had taken place that day.

Wolfram & Hart made a point of never asking more of their employees than they were prepared to give.

  
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  


Interlude: Adagio

Sunset on the fourth day, and the junkyard in Sunnydale grew quiet once more.

Traffic on the street just past the sheet-metal fence continued for a while, as the incautious or ignorant carried on with their affairs, but eventually even those sounds faded, leaving only the stacks of rusted cars, the piles of ruined appliances, the jumbles of wood and plastic and wire....

...And the spot on the ground, nearly erased now with the comings and goings throughout the day, where a goddess had fallen and died.

That spot, where the crystalline ringing that hung in the air was getting ever louder, slowly for days but now a bit faster, and the gleam of faux moonlight was gleaming ever brighter, bright enough now to read by, if someone had been there with a book to try it, and the glimmering of motion that flittered and skittered was stronger now too, strong enough to stir the air in that sad and forlorn place, where even the rats and ants and gnats knew better than to venture.

An hour passed, and then another, and the moon achieved her heights and gazed down from above as the ringing and gleaming and glimmering reached out and touched the world with fingers of magick from places that were farther than far, and alien to the warm lands of the living Earth.

There was a flash, a flicker and a crack like breaking stone, and _something_ fell to the ground out of empty air, a grotesque and twisted mass of flesh and bone that lay there in an unmoving heap for scant moments before evaporating in a torrent of rushing flame, going then gone.

Another flicker-flash, and a crack like shattering ice, and _something_ fell to the ground out of empty air, a writhing mass of tentacles and beaks this time, slime and suckers, alive where the other had been dead, yet it endured for scant moments only before collapsing, melting, dissolving, then vanishing in a rush of whipping gusts, the wind raging only briefly, and only in that small place, there within the fences, surrounded by rust and ruin.

More flickers came, closer together now, flashes coming faster and faster until the stuttering glare was an assault and the glimmering in the air was a hungry turbulence and the ringing of the spheres shattered glass all through the junkyard; car headlights and discarded mirrors and ancient soda bottles that had lain undisturbed for decades, all splintering and screaming in sympathetic resonance before they surrendered and fell apart.

Creatures and things, beings and blobs, feathers and horns and claw-tipped paws, large and small, swarm and behemoth, appearing, flailing, failing, vanishing, as the vast, alien energies that had been a goddess blindly writhed their way back into the world.

Because, you see, this place was too distant from that other place, the hellscape that had spawned that energy, that magick, that goddess. It could not return there, though everything in its nature drove it to do so, and so, instead, it struggled, and reached, and eventually, reluctantly, it _changed_.

The gleaming splintered, falling into sparks that scattered, merged, and splintered again, most of it falling away for good, dissolving and drifting like cobwebs and shadows, though much of it remained, shifting and warping, still searching.

The glimmering shattered, chaotic whirls scattering, circling, returning and rebounding, and again, most of it fell away, spinning off in long arcs and wandering curves, touching against rust and wrecks, jumbles and heaps, popping like soap bubbles and fading like dreams, gone forever... but much of it remained, and it orbited the gleaming, which seemed to be settling, shrinking, still changing, still reaching.

Above and around it all, the sound reached its crescendo, the pure, unending, impossible note dividing and diverging, spawning chords and tones that merged and split, rang and shimmered, screeched and swirled, and most it was lost, rebounding and reflecting in all directions, echoes moving like lost things, farther and further into the distance until they had faded to nothing... but much of it remained, settling, changing, the jumble of sounds gradually merging into a sustained chord, the product of three distinct tones, all of them high and pure and sweet, though somehow _too_ clear and _too_ much for the air to easily carry and too spitefully _perfect_ for the ear to comfortably hear.

And then stillness returned at last to the yard, and silence to the air, and three beings found themselves there, and knew themselves as themselves, and each raised herself to her knees, and then to her feet. Eyes met eyes met eyes, discovering and knowing each other in an instant just as they had discovered and known themselves.

"What _is_ this?" The first one asked, in a voice as soft as silver, and sharp as sudden fear.

"You know what this is," Said the second. "We're her, what's _left_ of her, what little this world would accept of her, when her power was broken and her core shattered."

Her voice was soft as the flicker of storms from beyond the horizon, and as true as regret.

"She _ended_ us, ended what couldn't _be_ ended," Said the third. "That girl, that _Slayer_." She almost spat the words, her voice soft as bliss, wild as passion, fierce as hate.

"That one died," Replied Silver, and she pointed upwards, at an empty place far above them. "Up there, falling through the gate and using her life to slam it closed." She looked surprised, and looked at the others. "I can see it, feel it, hear it, echoing there."

"Good," Said Stormlight. "She was scary. She tricked us, hurt us, _killed_ us, and no mortal should have been able to do that."

"Stupid tricks and dumb luck aren't scary," Sneered Bliss, her eyes full of contained fury. "And all she did was pile on after the Knights had chipped away at us for centuries, and trapped us in that idiot Ben, tainting us with humanity, making our mind unravel and our powers fade." She clenched a fist and stared at the spot in the air that was still radiant with the shining light of noble sacrifice. "Idiot girl. All she did was save us the bother of finding and killing her ourselves."

Stormlight looked uneasy.

"But what do we do? We were a goddess before, even if they'd bound us and weakened us, and now we're not."

Silver caught her concern, and eyed their surroundings warily. All of them were naked; human-looking women, young and beautiful, but unarmed and clad in nothing but their long, long hair.

"No, we're not. Yes, free of Ben, finally, but we're even weaker now than we were before."

Bliss stepped closer to the others, and met their fearful eyes with the certainty of her own.

"Less than we were, yes. Weaker, yes, but still not weak. We have new bodies, new magic. This world isn't fighting us now, which means we can grow instead of fade, _breathe_ instead of suffocate. We can get back everything we had and more, if we're willing to _take_ it."

Stormlight and Silver both stared at her, drinking in her confidence, letting it drive back their own uncertainty. When Bliss leaned in, Silver met her with a kiss, the two of them sharing magic, sharing purpose, sharing their desire to regain the closeness and power that had been theirs as the being called Glory. 

Pulling away, Bliss turned and met Stormlight's eager lips, parted and desperate for love, belonging and guidance, and again magic flowed in both directions, setting their blood to singing in flawless harmony.

The three of them stood there for several minutes, arms around each other, heads bowed and foreheads pressed together as they all took just a little time to find comfort in the fact that, even shattered as they were, the shards of the goddess were together.

They soon departed the junkyard, relying on vague, scattered memories to find their way. They knew where Glory's belongings had been a few days ago, and after that, they'd see about regaining their unity, and the power that came with it.

  
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  


Interlude: Vivace  
When the three Shards had departed, the weary old junkyard lay there, empty at last, and finished with any and all happenings of otherworldly strangeness.

Yes, scattered bits of the surreal remained. Faint-gleaming sparks that had not yet faded, feeble glimmerings of disturbance that bounced gently and whirled aimlessly at the edges of things, like bubbles resting nestled in tall grass, somehow yet unpopped but surely not long for this world, and over it all, isolated pockets of faint chiming, the last dregs of that crystal keening, rising and falling, swelling and fading, but growing softer, growing fainter, all but done and soon to be lost forever.

And then....

A gleaming sliver of light, moved by mundane wind or perhaps some idle eddy cast by the slumbering Hellmouth, found its way by happenstance into a half-hidden nook between a half-crushed bus and a heap of iron tubs and brittle plastic tubing. The bit of light landed there, light as a snowflake, and was absorbed into the object which lay there, lost amongst all the rest of the unloved and unwanted debris.

Then a second fragment of light fell in that same spot, following the first, and one of the tiny whirls, an uncertain turbulence barely visible at all, found its way there as well, and vanished into the form that lay so stiff and still.

A soft singing sounded, the few fragile remnants of the crystalline tone, bereft of all harshness now, sounding joyful and light as they gathered there with the rest. And in the confines of that nook, focusing and merging with the sort of blind intention that magic sometimes achieves, what was left of the goddess, the threads and slivers and echoes of her power that hadn't dissipated or been gathered into the three who had already departed, slowly coalesced, and poured itself into and within the still form, into the thing that had lain there undisturbed for days, ever since a devastated Dawn, stumbling and weeping, had managed to hide it, just before the authorities arrived.

Then--nothing.  
The magic was gone, scattered, faded, silenced.  
Nothing.  
Nothing.  
Noth--

"--Eeeeep!"

She jackknifed up into a sitting position, green eyes wide.

"Oh! That was weird. I was gone, but now I'm back!"

Something very, _very_ important drew her attention to the sequencing list in her command file (It was flagged as priority .111a, which was very important indeed), and she quickly looked all around, calling out as loudly as her vocal processor allowed.

"Me! Spike! Villainous Lady Stupid Glory! I'm able to continue the battle now!" She flipped to the next highest thing on the list. "Dawn! Do you need protecting?!"

There were no replies, and the Buffybot did a careful survey of the sky, the junk, and the ground beneath her. Everything seemed to still be there, with no demons or deities rampaging about and disintegrating the universe, which nicely matched one of the possible outcomes in her battle-modeling simulations.

The Bot smiled brilliantly.

"I guess we won! Yay!"

She stood up, brushing off the dirt and things that tried to stick to her clothes, hair, and synthetic skin.

"Yuck. Not good. Dirt makes me measurably less cute, and Spike's definitions are clear that the Slayer is always cute, and that's me! (and also Me, but I don't see her anywhere)."

Pausing, the Bot considered her internal readings. Most of them were fine, but some seemed... off. Not broken, or in any way interfering with normal function, so far as she could tell, but this definitely met the parameters for reporting to Willow for maintenance. 

With a spring in her step, ready to deal with any demons or monsters she might encounter, she exited the junkyard through a suitable gap in the fence and went to look for Willow. And if she couldn't find Willow, her instructions said she should look for Me. And if she couldn't find Me, she should look for Tara. And if she couldn't find Tara, (and so on, and so on).

And looming above all of those instruction sets was the one that had been put in right before the battle, right before she had successfully executed her trick on the Villainous Lady Stupid Glory (who had _extremely_ pretty hair and also nice skin, though her eyebrows had been kind of evil): 'Protect Dawn. Stay with her, keep her safe, do everything you can for her. Help her to not be alone, if I'm there any more. Be her sister, as best you can. Love her, if that's something you can learn how to do.'.

That had been done by Me. Her voice, speaking the words, and her face, staring intently into the Bot's own, while they were standing on the little hill and looking at the big shaky tower. Me had looked like she knew something, or feared something, and the words had just spilled out of her, sounding very important. So the Bot had nodded, and filed the additional directive under 'very important', and now it was there, waiting, ready to activate if needed.

But she was sure it would be fine; she would ask Willow when she found her, if Me and Dawn were okay.

The nighttime streets were quieter than the statistical norm, which was probably why a vampire tried to jump her after less than a block. 

She faced off with the monster, reciting a random quip from her list, chosen by a quick run from her random number generator (filtered by conditions, onlookers and monster type): 

"The best thing about leather pants is how I look in them. Wanna know the second-best thing?"

The vampire looked confused, then angry, snarling as it turned on its meanie-face and grabbing at her. She executed the throat punch combat subroutine, following it with a punch, punch, front kick, advance, spin kick, and when that sent him sprawling on the ground, she drew a stake from inside her jacket and dropped to her knees atop his stomach, poised and ready.

"--It's that vamp dust wipes off with just a damp paper towel." She waited for another one-point-three seconds to make sure he had time to register and understand the quip, then plunged the stake home, creating a medium-sized _Pompff_ of the vamp dust she'd just mentioned.

"Hmm! Diagnostics are still a little wonky, but that seemed easier than usual for me. Willow will be proud!"

Beaming happily at the empty street, she continued on her way.

  
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  


So yeah, that was a thing I did.  
In four days.  
Without much sleep (which explains alot, doesn't it?  
I'm currently divided on whether I'll do more of this one, so if you have strong feelings on the matter please let me know.  
(Did you catch the cameo from the third fandom? It wasn't exactly subtle).  
Thanks again for giving this oddity a look, guys.

  
* * * * *  


Like many other writers and creators I do indeed have one of those incredibly helpful web-platform based things, you know, the ones you're not allowed to discuss in places like this?  
If you look for it you can find it, so I leave it up to you.

And of course, regardless of whether you want to mess with that or not, this story is here, for you, foever, and I am humbled and touched by your interest in my work.  
I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it for you.  
If you can, please take a moment to leave a Rec or a Review, as those tend to trigger outbursts of joy in this not otherwise overly-joyful author.

Thanks!


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